I loved the idea of these 3 people hitting ages that none of us like to face, all on the same day. And in the book, there lives become intertwined, and little by little, they realize that whatever age they are may not be so bad; I came up with the idea on my own birthday, on a year that I was growing with horror at my age. Whatever age I am, or have been, I have always been convinced that I was ancient—since I was about 25. Maybe even 21. I started everything early in life. I went to college at 15, got married at 17, had kids at 19, and by the time I was 21, I actually felt old. These days everyone seems to act, feel, dress and think young. When I was young, it was all about being ‘responsible’ and ‘grown up’. Now it’s all about youth. And whatever age I was, I look at pictures of myself and think ‘yerghk, I’m ancient’, and then 5 years later would see the same pictures and think ‘wow, I looked really young then! But NOW I’m ancient. The numbers are really silly, and maybe they’re irrelevant. (I wrote my first book at 19, so I’ve always been on some sort of fast track, speeding ahead). And I guess our obsession with age is still an issue, since I recently discovered that almost all my daughters’ friends, in their early 20’s are getting Botox shots! Now THAT is silly! Really silly! Or at least I think so.

So writing the book “Happy Birthday” gave me a chance to think about ages, landmark ages, and how we view ourselves. And as I wrote the book, and urged my characters to do new and different things, the theme of ‘why not?’ emerged, and it became an important theme in the book—-and in my life. The three people in the book wind up in totally unexpected love affairs with startling results in all three cases. They do new and different things, and find themselves thinking ‘why not?’ which opens new doors for them—and the mood of the book became contagious. I found myself thinking ‘why not?’ too. Why do we have to tread the same path we always have? Why can’t we do something totally new and different and unexpected? Why do we have to be limited by age, at any age? We are a person, not a number. The concept of ‘why not?’ opens new doors, can lead to new lives or careers; can bring us to new people. The concept is incredibly liberating!

The Why Not experiences in my life have almost always been good ones, only with a few exceptions. I have always loved art, and several years ago I decided to open an art gallery, which was one of the happiest, most exciting things I’ve ever done. I loved every minute of it. I didn’t know how to run a gallery, and it was all new to me, but it was a truly fabulous experience for the four years I did it. My first book was a ‘why not’ idea. Having many children; people were always telling me that you can’t have a career and a family. Why not, if you’re willing to do the work that goes with it? My first house, that I bought, was a huge stretch for me. It was a major why not. When I divorced, I missed spending time on boats since my ex-husband was an avid sailor. And I realized that boats didn’t have to be history for me and my kids. I found a way for us to spend a week on a boat every summer—another stretch, but well worth it. I also love to play poker (and still do), and I started a poker game every two weeks that was great fun.

We so easily accept limitations of time and age and circumstances, and if we’re brave enough to throw open closed doors and say ‘why not?’ suddenly the possibilities are endless.

The theme for that book has stayed with me. And when I tell myself I can’t do something, because its not ‘sensible’, or I shouldn’t’ or its too silly, or I’m too old, or I can’t because I can’t, because I’m single and single people can’t do that—-I think of ‘why not?’ now, and I get braver and more creative. The truth is, with some ingenuity, we can do a lot of things we never thought we could. Sometimes it takes courage, and there are still some things I’ve never done and maybe will never do, but life has been a lot more fun since I’ve responded ‘why not?’ to a number of possibilities. I hope the book will inspire you too. And even if you never read the book, the next time you start to squash yourself and tell yourself why you can’t do something—-ask yourself ‘why not?’ (even if its eating a hamburger for breakfast if you want to, or trying new make-up, a new hair color, or meeting new person, or dating someone you may never have considered—-ask yourself ‘why not?’—-I bet it will put a lot more fun and excitement in your life ‘why not?’—-the result of asking yourself that question, and being open to new possibilities, can be amazing! Why not?

Love, Danielle

But while we are so busy envying youth, which is epitomized by young people in their 20′s, those of us who are older have all managed to forget how difficult it is being that age. My own 20′s werent fabulous. I married in my teens, had my first child at l9, by 21 I was separated, carrying all the responsibility for a child. I faced divorce in my 20′s. I wrote my first book at l9, and in my 20′s I was struggling hard to start my career. I was broke. I had multiple jobs to make ends meet. I never seemed to be able to figure out who had the instruction manual for my 20′s. I sure didnt. I went for long periods of not dating at all, too busy working and taking care of my daughter—and then dated the wrong men. I got my heart broken umpteen times. My 20′s were one long endless struggle, with the constant angst of feeling that I was doing everything wrong. And I was just young enough for my parents to feel free to tell me that I was (doing everything wrong) every chance they got, and some of the time they were right. I’m sure I must have had fun in my 20′s, but damned if I remember when. It really was a hard time. Difficult things have happened to me since, which have been very hard, but most of the time I feel like a competent person dealing with it. In my 20′s, I was never sure I was on the right track, and always afraid I wasn’t (and some of the time I was way off track and didn’t even know it). It was an era in my life of constant insecurity. It’s hard to know where you’re going in your 20′s, or where your path will lead. By the time you’re a little bit older, you have more confidence and a sense of what you can actually do. But in your 20′s you just don’t know, you haven’t proven yourself yet in any area of your life, and you have no idea what fate has in store.

My five youngest children are in their 20′s (from 22 to 28), and these days I have a front row seat of just what that means and what it’s like. While we (anyone older than that) are envying them the delights of their youth, they are graduating from college into a world where it is agonizingly difficult to find jobs. Where once they get those jobs, they rarely if ever get raises, since most companies have freezes on salary increases, thanks to the economy that we, the older generation, have managed to screw up for them. In the distance, there are the sounds of war, that they didnt cause, but may pay the price for. In earlier generations, people had job security, and if they chose to, could work for one corporation for an entire career, or switch jobs along the way with confidence, and even had a multitude of choices to find good, solid jobs. Now, no one’s job is secure, at any age. Careers in the arts have never been easy, now they are damn near impossible, with money no one can live on, particularly at entry level. Relationships are complicated and people are confused. Suddenly gorgeous 22 year old girls claim they cant find a date or a serious relationship, and even young people are looking to Internet services to pair them up, rather than meeting their dates or future mates through family, friends, or jobs. People communicate by text and emails, instead of having real, human contact. Men are confused by their role in today’s society, and the women they go out with or want to date may make more money than they do, which may hurt their ego and scare them off, or put too much strain on a relationship. Women no longer have to put up with what they once did, or even make a relationship work, because they can support themselves and don’t have to depend on a man. In my generation, getting married and having kids was an important goal. Today, having watched their parents and nearly everyone they know get divorced, many young people no longer want to marry and are extremely leery about an institution that no longer seems to work (in 60% of the cases, which are lousy odds), some are not so sure they want kids, and if so, they dont see why they have to get married to do that. And for those who missed the boat and don’t meet Mr. Right while their biological clock is ticking, they go to sperm banks and have babies biologically fathered by strangers they’ve never met, and bring the child up alone (which is not always so easy). We have handed down a world to our young people that is full of challenges new to our era. Environmental problems, political problems, economies that don’t work, jobs that are hard to find and hang onto. Many of these conditions are new to this generation and have never existed before. Our economy has never been worse, or jobs harder to find since the Great Depression. And on a more personal level, one of my pet peeves is people texting and emailing instead of talking to each other by phone or face to face. It takes a lot of the humanity out of our daily contacts, and even dating. Whole relationships rise and fall by text. People get ‘dumped’ by email, or fall in love by email and then find out it isn’t real, and they’ve either been misled, or made a mistake themselves. Far too often, relationships are ‘virtual’ instead of real. All of which makes it hard to find your footing as a young person in today’s world.

Along with all of these problems that we, the previous generations, have handed to young people in their 20′s today, are the problems that young people that age have always had to deal with. Figuring who they want to be when they go grow up. What job they want, or career. Who they want to be with, and marry, or not. Most people that age aren’t stable in relationships, they change their minds, disappoint each other, cheat on each other (not exclusive to our 20′s unfortunately, but more frequent then). We usually get our hearts broken for the first time in our 20′s, make our first big mistakes. I am constantly distressed to see how often young people that age are exploited by their employers, who pull things on them they wouldnt dare do to an older employee. They work longer hours for less pay in worse conditions, and are threatened with getting fired if they don’t like it (and may have trouble finding another job, so are afraid to leave a bad one, a factor which abusive employers exploit). Most people are scared in their 20′s, I was. You’re always afraid of losing a relationship, or getting fired, or doing things the wrong way. You have no experience to draw on, which you have later on, so you’re flying blind at that age, and everything is new, whether in relationships or at work. You’re never sure exactly what’s expected of you or if you’re doing things right. Will you succeed? Does he or she love you?? Can you pay your rent, find a room mate, find a job, afford a car? Should you move to another city? Quit the job you hate? For most young people, then or now, their 20′s are fraught with risk, and the fear of taking the wrong fork in the road. It is a time of constant choices. Friends your own age advise you who know as little as you do, and may give you poor advice. Parents put the pressure on to get serious, find a job, a better job, or get married. It is a time when you often discover that the friends you thought you could count on aren’t as faithful as you thought, and you discover the sadness of betrayal, or the simple fact that the people you grew up with are changing, just as you are, and your friendship once so precious may not survive. It is a time of loss and gain, of shedding the treasures of our childhoods, and finding new ones. It is a time of putting our childhood and adolescence away, and having to face being a grown up forever, which looks scary at best, even in the best of times.

When I look at what all young people have to deal with, the bumps in the road they will have to face and always have at that age, and the even bigger bumps we have created for them, and the potholes in the road, my heart goes out to them, and aches. As I watch my children deal with growing up, I worry about them constantly at the difficulties that may face them, and sometimes do. I hate the romantic disappointments they face, the losses, the sorrows, the fears. I hate the hardships they may face. And as I watch them struggle through it, with amazing grace, I am filled with admiration for their courage. Their road is so much harder than ours was. They have all the same normal heart aches to face that we did, and many of the same fears, that come from just not being a child anymore and having to find their way in a grown up world, with less protection than they once enjoyed. And now, in addition, they must learn to navigate in a far more complicated world.

Young people in their 20′s are not to be envied. When I take a close look, and remember, I would not go back to my 20′s for anything in the world, even if I was wrinkle-free and my thighs looked better. It is a tough, tough time, a rite of passage, and a hard one. My children in their 20′s, and their peers, have all my love and respect for all they deal with, and how hard they try to figure out their path. They are not to be envied, but to be supported. By the time we hit our 30′s, many of us have figured out how things work, and we start to feel confident about life. But in our 20′s everything is to be discovered, sometimes the hard way, by our mistakes. It is the beginning of the game, the beginning of real life. And all we can wish them is safe passage, and hope that the joys they encounter will be greater than the pains. But if those of us who are older think back to our 20′s, we will remember that it is not an easy time. All I can wish for those of you in your 20′s is that the road will be smooth, and you will make wise choices. Try not to be afraid, you will discover everything you need to know in time. Take good care, and be careful…..and enjoy these years, as challenging as they are!!! And if you pay attention to what you’re doing, I know you will be fine!!! (And remember that no one else knew any more than you do at your age!!) You’re doing great!!! Love, Danielle

French Haute Couture has been considered both an industry and an art form, for the hundreds of years of French participation (or leadership at one time) in Fashion. To be ‘haute couture’, a garment must be entirely made by hand. Every single stitch must be hand done, on intricate fabrics, complicated draping, exquisite embroidery, no machine can ever touch it. The seamstresses who work on the garments must apprentice for l2 years before they are officially considered workers in the art. And for many, many, many years, fashionable women came from all around the world, to see the fashion shows in January and July to see what each designer was offering for next season. The fashion shows were glorious, impressive beyond belief. Roughly, 75 outfits were shown on gorgeous internationally known supermodels (with hats, jewelry, accessories, shoes that were beautiful and impossible to walk in). And after the show, the women who wore ‘haute couture’, these incredible hand made garments, would try on samples if they fit them, or just look at them, and select the ones they wanted, be measured from head to foot, and order these treasures that were as much art as fashion. They have always been expensive, although they are even more so now. The government sets the dates for the haute couture shows, each designer was assigned a day and time slot, and the week of these fashion shows was a MAJOR event in Paris, with press from around the world to record it, hot criticisms or praise in the press for the collections, and movie stars, royalty, the wives of heads of state, and fashionable wealthy women in attendance. It was always an incredible treat to attend the shows, whether you bought or not. And you can’t just decide to go, you have to be invited. People damn near killed each other, or bribed or begged to get an invitation. Historical names in haute couture are Chanel, Balenciaga, Dior, Givenchy, Lanvin, Mme Gres, Fath, St. Laurent, and many others. Some of those names have now become ready to wear clothing brands, a few remain haute couture (in addition to ready to wear), and sadly some have disappeared forever.

So if you have grown up with the traditions of French fashion, Haute Couture week twice a year is a HUGE deal!!! (In January, they show clothes for next summer, and in July they show the clothes for fall and winter). And when you left a show, after seeing the magic there, even cab drivers would ask you how the show was. Everyone in Paris cared about these fashion shows, even if they’d never been to one, and the French were enormously and justifiably proud of them.

But like everything else in the world, times have changed. Money has changed hands, fortunes have been lost or diminished, new fortunes have been made by people who don’t know or care about haute couture, women entered the work force, blue jeans happened, and people just don’t dress like they used to. It’s fine now to run around all day in blue jeans and running shoes, and no one wears evening clothes or ballgowns very often even among the very rich. Life has become infinitely informal. And the once famous designers have closed, retired, and died off, and no one has replaced them. They have, in fact, become irreplaceable. The house of Christian Dior still shows haute couture, now designed by John Galliano, a young British designer, and their thrust is to the spectacular and theatrical, as PR for the brand, rather than wearable clothes that most of us could live in. Hubert de Givenchy retired about a dozen years ago, Alexander Mc Queen took over designing the collection for several years, and now Richard Tisci, a young Italian designer. Valentino retired a few years ago, although his couture collection is still presented. Versace no longer does couture. Yves St. Laurent retired, and then passed away, and the haute couture end of the business is only a glorious memory now. Balenciaga hasn’t done haute couture in years. Fath no longer exists. Balmain closed their couture collection when Oscar de la Renta retired from designing it. Most of the famous haute couture houses have closed or changed or no longer exist. Instead of perhaps 20 haute couture designers, I saw a list of l6 this week, and had only heard of 5 of them: Givenchy, Dior, Chanel, Armani, and Gaultier. I knew none of the others. And the collections are shown in a span of 3 days, mostly by unknowns, and they show 20 or 30 items, not the enormous collections of years gone by. Fashion houses now make their money on cosmetics, perfume, accessories, and ready to wear—–haute couture is just window dressing for PR, and a tribute to the past. And in addition to the designers who have disappeared, so have the clients. One used to oohhh and ahhh at famous movie stars, young queens and princesses we had only read about, the wives of presidents, and women we knew about from the press, fashion magazines, and best dressed lists. And although I saw Madame Chirac at the Chanel show today, (the wife of France’s previous president) I saw no one else I recognized. And the wife of the current French president was once a model at the haute couture shows, and has never attended them as the President’s wife. The shows take about half an hour now, once they start, usually about half an hour late. And gorgeous models walk down the runway in fabulous clothes, to the sounds of exciting music. The atmosphere is one of excitement and expectation, and the sights are those of dazzling beauty: the models and the clothes.

So, now that you know what the Haute Couture shows are about, that’s what I did today. I went to the Chanel show. As a show, if you’d never been to one before, it was fabulous. Chanel is designed by Karl Lagerfeld, an incredibly talented designer, and an icon in the fashion world, second only to Coco Chanel herself (who established the house in the l920′s. She was an incredibly glamorous woman! She was single, drove a car, introduced trousers for women, designed and wore great jewelry, and smoked in public!!). The clothes today at Chanel were gorgeous, the models dazzling, and all in all it was a huge success. But as an haute couture follower and fan of many years, who loves to fantasize about the clothes, I couldn’t help but be disappointed that if someone had made me an incredible gift and told me to pick an outfit, there wasn’t a single one I could have worn. The models all looked about twenty years old, and the clothes were fabulous on them, but not in a million years could any of them have been worn by someone my age. And these are mega, mega, mega expensive clothes. No twenty year old could afford them. So they are designed for very, very young women now, or this collection anyway, but only their mothers or grandmothers (if they were lucky), could afford them. Most of the collections were suits with shorts instead of skirts, and I can’t imagine myself running around in a very expensive outfit that was based on shorts. There were baby doll looks and mini skirts, and all of it would have been perfect on any girl from l6 to 30, but beyond that no one older than that could wear them. Okay, 32 maybe, but surely not much older than that. The middle aged women sitting on either side of me looked equally disappointed. If nothing else, you want to fantasize about yourself in them, not feel yourself shut out by decades. But I guess that’s the nature of haute couture now, it’s not for ‘grown ups’, it’s for very young girls (with generous boyfriends or husband or parents who will buy them for them). Or maybe they’re just designed to look pretty on them, in recognition of the fact that most people don’t wear haute couture anymore, and it is more of a spectacle for PR than a serious effort to sell to clients who love clothes. It made me sad for the old days when haute couture was designed for a broad range of affluent clients who actually wore the clothes. I have tried on many haute couture samples in my life, and just slipping them on your body is a thrill. Just touching a garment made from such exquisite fabrics, so intricately made feels like a privilege and an honor. My late mother in law gave me my first couture ‘cast off’ evening dress by Balenciaga when I was l8. It was an incredible experience and I cherished it for years. It was a piece of art. Now the designs I saw today are designed for young girls, but just wouldn’t have worked on more mature women. So I felt left out. I was still in awe of the beautiful clothes, the gorgeous designs, the spectacular models, and dazzled by the show, but I was reminded again of how haute couture has changed, that it is now more of a display and an art exhibit than a sample of truly wearable fashion. It saddens me that so many of the wonderful designers are gone, and I am grateful that there are still a few left. Chanel is the last of the great original houses still in operation, as is Dior. It is as much about tradition as about fashion, and I was happy to catch a glimpse of it today…..even if you won’t see me wearing any of the clothes. But we can dream, can’t we? And fortunately, the dream is not yet gone, there is still a little bit of it left. It’s exciting to be at a haute couture show, whether you can buy the clothes or not. (I studied fashion design when I was young, so haute couture is always a thrill for me, and I have followed it for my entire life, as an art form I truly love). And I was happy to be at the Chanel show today. At the end of the show, there is always a bride, and then the designer comes out to take a bow. The bride wore palest pink at the Chanel show today. I could easily see one of my daughters in it, but not myself…….Haute Couture, and its hey day, are really part of a lost world. And I am glad we still get these reminders of it from the few designers who are left. I hope it never entirely disappears!!!!!

So after everyone got settled back in school, and their own cities, I went to New York to celebrate my daughter Victoria’s birthday with her. I had a ball! My children were wonderful to me and included me in what they were doing. I spent an evening with them and their friends, and had some very interesting conversations (I forget sometimes how grown up they all are now, and what good company they are!!). We had a great time at Victoria’s apartment on her birthday too, and went to a nightclub afterwards and I tagged along. Three of my daughters were there, and I had a terrific weekend in New York.

After that I flew to Paris, and braced myself to be really lonely. And to try and avoid getting down in the dumps without my kids, I planned some fun events with friends in Paris. I thought it would be a quiet few weeks—and instead I had a ball. I invited friends to brunch, gave a lunch at a restaurant for my favorite women friends, and invited some friends to dinner at a restaurant. And other friends invited me out to dinner. And the next thing I knew, I was busy every day, seeing friends, having fun, enjoying the last of the warm days in Paris, puttering around my apartment and moving things around. I was amazed at how much fun I had—-and the best fun of all was a party I gave that was an experiment that worked out better than expected!

In July, I met a friend for a drink (in my case, water) at a hotel lobby and there was a pianist playing songs from the 60’s and 70’s, with a violinist accompanying him. Listening to him made me want to dance, and as I left, I asked the pianist if he ever played in private homes, he said he did, and I booked him to come and play at my apartment in September. As the day approached, I got nervous about it, figuring that it might seem silly to my friends, no one would want to dance, and it was starting to feel like a really dumb idea. What had I gotten myself into? But what the hell, when I got home to Paris, I shoved the dining table against one wall, everything else against another, took all the chairs out of the room, which left a nice space for dancing. I had invited 25 friends for a casual buffet dinner, told them to wear jeans, I wanted it to be an easy going evening, nothing stuffy or formal. Everyone arrived, looking curious about what the evening would be like. And the pianist I had hired arrived with 5 musicians and a singer. And the next thing I knew we were all dancing and singing—it wasn’t glamorous or even very sexy, it was just terrific fun, and EVERYONE danced. People I didn’t even know liked to dance wound up dancing all night. We danced to Stevie Wonder, Abba, all the songs we grew up with and really felt like kids again. We danced until 1:30 in the morning, and I haven’t had so much fun in years! It was fantastic, and I can’t wait to do it again! What a wonderful balance to all the serious grown up things we deal with. I love to dance, it was a really terrific fun evening and when they played ‘Dancing Queen’—-that was me!!! I LOVED IT!!! I had a wonderful evening and a ball in Paris this September…and now, back to real life in San Francisco. It’s time to start writing again….but I want to have my friends over to dance again soon!!

I married at barely 18, and had my first child at 19. That was a little young even then—but to make matters even more confusing, I had gone to college at 15. Most of my friends got married in their early twenties then. 21, 22, 23. That was pretty common, and they often had children fairly quickly. It was common for a woman to have one or two kids, or even three, by their mid twenties. And men married young then too. (No, that was not during the Civil War or during the Middle Ages—my kids would say something like that to me. I’m not that old, thank you!). And I think that in rural areas, people still marry younger than they do in cities.

But in big cities, with more people going to college, and both men and women pursuing careers, with money hard to live on and even harder to support kids on, people are marrying later and later. Young people stay in school until their mid twenties, or sometimes later. Most young women don’t seem to marry until their thirties. It’s considered ordinary when a young woman marries at 35 today, or has a first baby at 38 or even forty. Child bearing has become possible later than it used to be, sometimes with medical assistance, or not even. Everyone seems to be getting started later. I see with my own children, their life experience in their early and mid-twenties is like mine at a much earlier age. I had a child at 19, was working at 21. I considered myself ancient at 30. I remember thinking that I would never have a child after the age of thirty, and then had five more!

In some ways today’s delayed adulthood is a blessing. People have more time to grow up, to think about what they’re doing, to find a real direction, to marry the right person instead of making an early mistake, someone to whom you’re not well suited later. Life isn’t as ‘serious’ as it was in my day, when you had to be married, have a serious job or career, and have made a lot of big decisions when you were really still a kid. Today young people get a chance to be kids, and aren’t as pressured as we were to have all the answers at such an early age. I still consider my children in their 20’s ‘kids’, and I don’t expect them to have made a mark on the world with their careers, met The One, gotten married and had children of their own at that age. In fact, I’m relieved they haven’t, because by taking their time, they are liable to make better decisions and far fewer mistakes than my generation did.

And there’s a domino effect to that freedom to remain young, which in fact affects every age. When I look at photographs of the outfit I wore leaving my wedding, it’s pretty much something my grandmother would have worn, and probably wouldn’t wear today. So serious! And soooo grown up for a child of barely 18. Eighteen year olds today wear tee shirts and jeans and high topped sneakers, not ladylike suits trimmed in mink. I don’t even wear those today.

But by allowing the young to really be young, stay students, not marry, and postpone having children of their own, and even live at home to save money—suddenly the next age group is affected, and people in their thirties are doing what we did at 21. They are choosing their careers more carefully, or going to grad school for further degrees, they are finally meeting the person they want to marry, and taking the steps that used to be taken a decade earlier. And many are having their first babies in their late thirties or early forties. That’s considered routine these days. (I remember a forty year old first time mother at the nursery school pick up when I was twenty two and being stunned by how ancient she was. A 40 year old Mom was a rarity in those days. Now it’s routine.) I made my mother a grandmother at 38—-in today’s world she’d be having her first baby.

And with thirty year olds getting a later start, people in their 40’s are young marrieds, have toddlers, are picking nursery schools, and don’t have kids in college and are twenty or thirty years away from grandparenthood. Sure, some people still start young, but many don’t.

And suddenly on that time table, a 50 year old can have a ten year old. People dress younger, look younger, feel younger, and take better care of themselves these days. They eat better, exercise, go to gyms, and are active with their young children. A fifty year old when I was young was an old person. A fifty year old today looks great, and youthful, and lots of women get Botox, and assist Mother Nature.

Add another ten years to that, and you have women who dress young, are in great shape, and have young kids around, and are often busy with careers. And you wind up with the 70 years old I was speaking of earlier who looks fabulous and twenty years younger than she is.

The numbers don’t seem to make much sense anymore, and there’s a sense of freedom to it. You can have a baby at fifty, if you have a good doctor. You can marry or go to school at any age. You can launch a career, and in many lines of work can work as long as you want to.

By the old standards, I should be wearing grown up clothes by now and look like a serious person, instead I wear black leather pants and high heels. Anyone can wear mini skirts, if you’ve got the legs. Everyone wears jeans. I wear them every day.

I think what all this freedom means is that we don’t have to be governed by the old rules. You don’t have to marry or have a baby at a particular age. If you’re still in school at 25, or 30, that’s okay. If you go back to school, better yet. So if our kids are allowed to be kids for far longer, we can postpone growing up too—and above all, we don’t have to see ourselves as old, act old, dress old, or live old, at any age. It’s kind of exciting when you think about it. And by taking the pressure off young people, we have taken the pressure off every age. How cool is that!

Of course there are always people who take things to a ridiculous extreme. The English have a great expression about ‘Mutton dressed as lamb’, which refers to older women trying to dress like they’re 18. Good judgment and a serious look in the mirror are always good things.

I think having young kids keeps me busy, and my mind focused on what’s happening today, not on what used to be. Being young isn’t as easy as it looks and it’s full of hard decisions. But at least the timing isn’t quite so tough anymore. They get a break, so we get a break, and if we want to, and are blessed with good health, we can act, think, look and feel young for a long, long, time. I don’t know about you, but it sounds good to me!!

In talking about dating at every age, in relation to my daughters, one of my friends, and even in relation to me, my oldest son echoed the same thought during a recent conversation—-that love can happen at any and every age, and is not attached or limited to any age. I have to admit, I love that idea.

One of my daughters was talking recently about something she felt she had to do in her 20′s, and listening to her, I was suddenly aware that there is no limit to when we have to do anything. But I remember feeling that way too at her age. We set goals and limitations for ourselves of what we MUST do at 25 or 30 or 40, or older. Who says?? Particularly with today’s more youthful outlook and healthier people, people are climbing mountains, starting businesses and new ventures, and even having babies, and surely getting married if they choose to, far older than they used to. With today’s fashion, I even wear clothes that I wouldn’t have considered wearing at 30. Now the doors have opened, and so many more things are open to everyone. The main thing is to keep our attitude open, and unlimited.

I too have been guilty of the ‘age limitation’ concept, and keep thinking that it must be ridiculous to date, fall in love, or marry past a certain age. Again, who says? Why can’t you fall in love at any age? Why can’t you get a second or third or fourth shot at life, at a relationship, at a new career, a new city? And hearing someone say that to me, especially one of my children, made it that much more real. I think “Love has no age…..that it is timeless” is a great idea. Leave it to the French to come up with the concept. Just thinking about it gave me hope….who knows, why can’t any of us fall in love at any age?? It sounds like a great idea to me!!!

I canceled the appointment five times because I am so terrified to go, and always afraid that this time I will be struck by lightning, and my luck will run out, although I have no family history of problems in that area. At the place where I go, they are extremely kind and do everything to put you at ease. In spite of that, I am too terrified to go, and cancel often, but I do manage to do it once a year, because it’s smart and responsible to do it. But it is an agony getting there (the test is painless, although there are many jokes about it). Getting that test reminds me of my frailty, my humanity, of how vulnerable we all are, of how quickly lives can change in a single devastating instant. No one is exempt from those dangers. And I’ve had enough friends who have had bad news and discovered they had breast cancer, to seriously worry about it, each and every time. For me, there is nothing more humbling than this annual test, where no matter how successful you are, how happy or sad your life, how ‘famous’ people say you are, in the flick of an eyelash, you are just another woman being checked for breast cancer and praying you won’t get bad news. The moments after the test, while they read the scans, and you hold your breath waiting to hear the verdict (of a clean bill of health, or a gray area they don’t like), are among the worst moments I have all year. But as I have every year so far, I’m so glad I did it, and don’t have to worry about it for another year.

You are probably braver and smarter than I am, and I hope you do it regularly if you’re of the age to do so. The test itself is nothing to be afraid of. And I guess the results are in destiny’s hands, and whatever forces you believe in.

I wish you luck with this. I just wanted to share with you that I understand, how scary it is, and how hard to make yourself go there. It is my most vulnerable moment of the year. And good luck when you go to get yours, if you do. I’ll be sending you all my good thoughts.

Most or even all of the adults I know are talking somberly about the current financial crisis. There are a lot of doomsayers, predicting worldwide desolation and even the end of the world as we know it. But they are definitely focusing on the half empty glass, and it certainly isn’t cheering to hear.

Meanwhile, I got an email from a young friend tonight. She graduated from college last year, and has had a hard time finding a job in the current market, so she’s taken jobs as a waitress and a coat check person, and doing an internship in her field to further her education. Is she whining about the crisis or the job market, although she’s a direct victim of it? No, she isn’t. Instead, she wrote me an email about two ideas she has for TV shows, which actually sound great to me. I have no idea if anything will come of these ideas, or even if there’s a market for them. But her email was a real wake up call to me. Instead of sitting around like the ‘grown ups’, predicting doom and worse times to come, she is making good use of her time, learning something and being as creative as she can. (She’s 23 years old) and she sounded full of energy and good cheer, and excited about moving forward. Not a single complaint about the job she doesn’t have. Wow!

Another young man I know, also about to graduate from college, is pounding the pavements in New York, interviewing for jobs—and instead of complaining or being frightened, he’s excited about the interviews he’s having and willing to work in almost any field.

A number of my kids’ friends, talented, bright, interesting young people with good educations, are out of work right now. Jobs are hard to come by, but there are jobs out there. And what I’m so impressed by is the attitude of these young people. They’re not scared, they’re not angry, they don’t think the end of the world is coming. They are forging ahead, full of life and excitement, and making plans.

Two of my own children will be graduating this year, and they will be out in that same sparse job market with the others. But I hear none of these young people complain or express fear (even those from families who aren’t wealthy). I hear none of the whining and moaning that I hear from my own generation. What I’m hearing is their excitement about jobs, their confidence that things will get better soon. What an example they are to us. They are the future of this country. And our future is safe in their hands. With all that energy, faith and good will, this country will be strong for a long, long time. Bravo for our kids!

Whatever age we are, it never seems like the right one at the time.  I remember desperately wanting to be a teen ager, when I was 11 or l2. Teenagers got to do EVERYTHING!!!!  They were cool.  They were free.  They were practically grown up….until I reached l3, and nothing much had changed (except for a few pimples).  As it turned out, 13 was actually not cool.  I was disappointed by that piece of news.  I then decided that l4, l5, or 16 would do it, but that didn’t do the trick either.  EIGHTEEN!!!! 18 would really do it, and just to be sure, I got married then—-and guess what, even married I wasn’t grown up really at 18.  By then, I was sure that 21 was the key.  At 21, you can do anything, even drink legally.  And I watch my kids today go through the same cycles, with the same illusions.  They expect l3, l6, l8, and then 21 to be magical, and are disappointed when they aren’t.  Life goes on, very little changed from the day before.  Although 21 is obviously cooler than 11.  At 25, today, one seems to hang between youth and adulthood, it’s a hard time full of confusing forks in the road, and hard decisions, and the pressure we put on ourselves to succeed.  And then sometime between 25 and 30, something weird happens.  At 25, you’re young, right?  And at 30, everyone starts whining about being ‘old’.  No one wants to turn 30.  So the high point in the rainbow seems to sneak in there somewhere, one day everyone wants to be older, but then in the blink of an eye, they suddenly feel ‘too old’.  How old is too old?  It’s a good question.   The decade marks after 30 don’t get easier, and each decade birthday, 40, 50, 60 brings even louder complaints about how old we are.  Sheesh, what a lot of work worrying about how old we are, if we’re not old enough or too old.  I think there were about 5 minutes in there somewhere when I wasn’t worried about being not old enough (in college at 15, married at 17, and a mother at 19), or too old (damn near every year ever since).  Worrying about it is a lot of work!!!

What intrigues me are the people I have met who are ageless, whom time seems to have ignored.  Or is it that they ignored time, and are too busy, too engaged, too interested and too interesting to be bothered with the notion of age?  I have known 5 such people in my lifetime, all of them remarkable people.  One is an extraordinary woman who must be now well into her 90′s, still beautiful in many ways, perfectly put together, at the forefront of fashion and every trend.  Every time I ran into her in the past 20 years, she was going somewhere, to Venice to take courses on Italian art, to live with a family in France (in her 80′s) to learn French—-and not a ‘cool’ family or old friends, a family she had never met before, in a tiny house, where the entire family shared one bathroom.  She actually learned the language, after 3 months of bad food and standing on line for the bathroom, and she doesn’t live that way at home.  What does she have that we don’t?  I’m not sure.  Courage, excitement about life, interest, she constantly wants to learn and do new things, and she looks fabulous.  She is even bold in the way she dresses and it looks great on her.  Truly, a remarkable woman.  The first of these timeless people I met was the grandfather of my first husband.  I met him when he was 97, and he lived to be l03.  He went to his office every day until he was l0l, and he could have continued thereafter, but decided not to and finally just let himself wear down, he was tired at l03.  Until then, he read several books a week, knew everything happening in the world, had all his faculties and remarkable health.  He looked 30 years younger than he was during all the years I knew him.  Knowing him was a great gift.  He was a wonderful man.  Another of these remarkable people was the mother of a dear friend, who also lived to be l03.  She sparkled, she was alive and vivacious and also interested and aware of everything, until a cold over a long weekend claimed her in the end. I am inherently lazy, and will drive anywhere that I could walk.  I once drove by her chugging up a steep hill in San Francisco on foot, and asked if she’d like a ride.  She was 97 then.  She looked at me and laughed, said of course not, and trotted up that hill.  She took care of herself, her family, and cleaned her own house until she died at l03.  She was a happy, joyful person, who clearly enjoyed life and made it a pleasure for everyone around her.  I know of two other such women right now.  One is turning 99, the other l0l.  The 99 year old thinks, speaks and acts like a 45 year old.  She drives, cleans house, reads voraciously, meets new people, lives on her own, travels alone, and goes dancing.  Talking to her is like talking to a contemporary, and I’m always embarrassed by what I haven’t read, done, and don’t know in comparison to her.  She is totally connected to and part of real life, and not sitting on the sidelines yet.  And the last of these people also lives alone, and last year at 100, shocked her family by deciding to move into assisted living and giving up her home.  She said she was tired of cleaning house.  A year later, she has new friends, is going to concerts, operas and ballets, and she’s just as busy.  What do these people do or know that we don’t?  How did Father Time forget them?  Or did they forget Father Time, and are too busy to even think about him.

Clearly, luck is a big factor here.  All of these people enjoy good health, but I’m sure that they must have some aches and pains, after all, all their moving parts are a century old.  They can’t feel great all the time, no one does, but I’ve never heard them complain, and they truly seem to be enjoying life.

It shocks me now when I meet my contemporaries, and it happens to people who go to school reunions.  A handful of people look great, or even younger than their age, and a whole other bunch look so old and over the hill that it’s scary.  You don’t even recognize them when you see them, and you run home and look in the mirror, panicked and wondering if you look as ancient as they do.  Why do some people stay so young, and others seem to fall right off the cliff, let themselves go, get beaten down, and look 20 years older than they are, and don’t seem to care about much anymore.

I cant help wondering if much of this (other than good health) is about attitude, about keeping busy, about learning new things, meeting new people, and staying connected to life.  It’s so much easier not to, to just slide into a chair at night and stare at the TV, to not learn something new, or hang out with the same old people.  I’m guilty of that too.  I’m not learning new languages, new sports, and I’m so busy working that I go for months sometimes without reading a new book (by someone else!!).  But seeing these remarkable older people really reminds me that staying connected and in the mainstream really matters, and makes a huge difference in the quality of one’s life in the long run.  These people even look better than much younger people who are doing nothing with their lives, and barely have a life.

Obviously, there are times when all of us are beaten down by life, and it shows.  When I lost my son, overnight I felt l00 years old, and looked awful.  It took me a long time to climb out of the pit.  The hard blows in life age us, tire us, wear us out and make us look older.  But surely those people who are l00 years old have had their share of hard blows too.  They survived them.  The gentleman I mentioned who lives to be l03 outlived all of his children, a tragic circumstance, but he enjoyed his grandchildren and their children, and enjoyed meeting young people and engaging with them.  When I was 20 and he was 97, I stayed with him for several months in his home, and I had a great time with him, and learned a great deal from him.

I am beginning to think it’s essential that if we want to remain interesting alive people, we need to stay plugged in to life, connected, adventuresome and brave.  We can’t just settle into an easy chair and let life pass us by.  I think the correct answer to new experiences is ‘why not?’  Why not do something new, meet a new person, try something new, learn something new.  It takes effort, but when you look at these remarkable really old people who are more exciting than we are, at half their age, it really makes me realize that we need to put some effort into this process.  I’ve never been to a school reunion, because French schools don’t have them, but if I ever go to one, I don’t want to be the oldest, dullest, most out of the loop boring person there.  And if luck is with us, and we live a long time, I sure don’t want to get there, whining all the way, focusing on my aches and pains, and wailing about how old I am….I’d rather be the person that younger people look at with admiration and say “Wow!! I want to be like her one day!!”.  As long as we’re here, for however long we’re here, why not enjoy it?  Why not say ‘yes’ to the new experiences in life?…..at least I’d like to try and do that…..why not?